Thursday, November 18, 2010

A Greek terrorist organization credited with the murder of the Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Athens, Richard Welch at his home in December 1975, as well as at least 50 bombings and 22 other assassinations. A self-styled MarxistLeninist revolutionary group named after the day on which the Greek Junta had ordered the army to occupy the campus of the University of Athens to suppress a student uprising in 1973, the group appeared immune to all attempts at penetration until Savas Xiros was injured while planting a bomb in Piraeus in June 2002. He identified his brother Vasilis as the gunman who had shot the British defense attaché, Brigadier Stephen Saunders, and named Alexandros Giotopoulos as N17’s leader. Both he and his principal subordinate, Paulos Serifis, were arrested and convicted of terrorist offenses committed over the previous 30 years.